Defender Jack Ainsley netted the only goal in the final moments as Town’s reserves beat Crystal Palace 1-0 in a behind-closed-doors friendly at Playford Road this afternoon.

The Town side included the likes of Josh Carson, Lee Bowyer, Nathan Ellington, Ryan Stevenson and Joe Whight as well as a number of Academy youngsters such as midfielders Byron Lawrence and Lewis Acott and defender Callum Bennett, who was last week told he would be offered a professional deal.

i cant call the bullard thing. reading have the dosh now but looks like mcdermott may be off to wolves so you have to wonder is it a case of the new owners just looking to splash a bit of cash and bring in a few big names? might do bullard some good, don't get me wrong, i love jimmy but if someone else wants him and is willing to pay and take his wages out of the equation then might be worth it in view of strengthening in the summer, lets face it, we have other alternatives and he's not really featured for a while now. may give the likes of stevenson a chance to nail a starting place between now and the end of the season. however, i'm playing devil's advocate, i would hope he stays, think another poster summed it up perfectly on another page by saying, we should enjoy having some strength in depth (midfield at least) for a while.

Wait for the summer and we will surely be in the hunt for Pompey players. As I said before, there is a high probability that Pompey as we know now may no longer exist in its current form...

To digress... Can't see anybody wanting to assume 20m debt at Pompey - now that the League has officially stuffed-up in their approval of the previous dodgy owners of Pompey, they will scrutinise the hell out of prospective owners, which will eek out the dodgy ones...

To add gloom to that, rationale commercially minded prospective owners would baulk at the "value" of Pompey, unless the existing creditors are willing to accept huge haircuts/discount on their debt.

Trust me when I say that even as a professional manager, its an unpleasant task to face angry creditors, to say the very least...